An Update. Finally!

Ok, some numbers for you :)

At one month post activation, David scored 76% correct on 10 recorded HINT sentences. At 6 months, he is up to 95%!!!!

At one month post activation, David scored 44% on his CNC single word list with auditory clues only. At 6 months, he is up to 86%!

We had a noise situation recently. My sister got married about a month ago, and the reception was L.O.U.D.

David has a program that helps him in noisy situations. I swear he did better than I did! He was able to talk to people and hear them with relative ease!

People have been telling me that he seems so much more relaxed now that he has the implant. He doesn't have a look of concentration on his face all the time, he's smiling more, talking more, hearing more things correctly. I rarely have to repeat myself now!

Now, for those of you reading...What kind of phone works well with the implant? Our cordless isn't working for his hearing aid OR his implant!

(and news of improvement...)

Me, not David.

David continues to rock his implant. He's in speech therapy now, working with Rebecca once a week. He's making progress, though it's slow and frustrating at times.

Right now they're working on recognizing vowels sounds in closed sets of words, and working on l,r,w for consonants.

As far as how the implant has improved his hearing, here are the before and after audiograms!




The first one is pre-surgery from his CI evaluation. I left the info on the bottom so that you can get a gist of what it all means.

The second image is from ONE MONTH post activation. ONE MONTH. That is HUGE.

He went from 43% accuracy with his hearing aids on his HINT test with only auditory cues, to 76% correct with his implant. He scored 100% with auditory and visual cues in quiet conditions.

I can't wait until his next audiogram to see how things are changing.

We both continue to work hard, and it is paying off in a major way!

Loud

"The water running...LOUD. The water draining from the tub...LOUD. The pressure being released when you open a soda...LOUD."

It's amazing what you tune out or just get used to when you're a hearing person. David is experiencing all of these things now, and I just smile, sometimes I giggle.

I'm tickled by the progress David has made in a week. I spoke to him yesterday with a paper in front of my face so he couldn't lipread. He understood the majority of what I said.

He doesn't wear his hearing aid at home anymore. He's wearing his processor at work more often now too. (The funniest description is of what a crowd of people sound like. "Like a bunch of birds chirping at each other.")

What do I sound like to him? At the moment, Mickey Mouse. That's a start!

There are little things that we don't notice too much as hearing people. The sound of a kiss, a gasp, walking in the hallway, turning on a light, the wind rustling through the leaves.

I'm bursting with pride when I see how dedicated David is to making this work to it's highest potential for him.

Hello Readers

It's been awhile. I chose not to blog the day to day musings of a recovering implant recipient.

We have been anxiously awaiting "Activation Day". That day was yesterday.

David's appointment was set for 1pm and we started a bit late due to horrendous traffic on I-95.

Martha and Maureen were both there. Maureen has been David's audiologist since he was an anklebiter (2). She came down for his activation, which meant a lot to us. It's hard switching audiologists after so long. Fortunately, Martha is also wonderful. She called to check up on David during his recovery. He's a person to them, not just another file.

Now, on to the exciting part.

The activation took a couple of hours. For the initial maps, they set the comfort and threshold levels on the implant, made sure that all 22 electrodes were functioning and set volume.

Right now his four programs are just different volume levels. As he gets used to how things sound, more advanced programs will be put in their places.

During the activation process, David was able to describe how the tones sounded (this is a very very good sign). He said one sounded like a gong, another like the alarm on a truck backing up. He also heard his own voice. He said that he sounded hoarse, and it was interesting watching him try to find the right words. In the past he's told me that he wasn't able to hear himself speak.

David was getting very tired during the activation process, but kept plugging along.

Once we got home, he was pretty overwhelmed by all of the sounds in the house, so he went outside to water the garden. He turned his hearing aid off. When I came out, he told me that he heard birds. Too many birds! I laughed and told him it was always like that. He asked me if the water hose always made that sound. He heard a neighbor's child yelling from another house on another street. He heard Jaime yelling from the play scape. He heard Eloise blowing raspberries from my arms (that one made him smile his amazingly charming smile).

He's not yet recognizing speech as speech, but that will come with time.

In two weeks we go back for another mapping session. Until then, David will be working out all the new sounds that he's hearing.

Stay tuned!

FAQ's

Q: What is a cochlear implant?
A: A cochlear implant is a surgically implanted device that directly stimulates to cochlea to transmit sound messages to the brain. The internal device is made up of an electrode array that goes inside the cochlea, and a receiver/stimulator. The receiver/stimulator contains a magnet so that the external processor can be hooked up to it.
The external part of the cochlear implant is a microphone (attached to the processor) a processor (either body worn or behind the ear) and a magnet that attaches to the side of the head to transmit the messages to the stimulator and then on to the brain.

Q: What kind of implant does David have?
A: David has the Cochlear Nucleus Freedom. More information on this particular implant can be found at www.cochlearamericas.com

Q: Why did David only have one side done?
A: David still gets pretty good benefit from his hearing aid. When he was going through the testing for the implant, the specialists talked to us about only doing the right side, where David's hearing is worse.

Q: Will David be able to get the other side done?
A: After he goes through the mapping process and speech therapy, if David likes the implant and what it does for him, he can choose to have the other side implanted as well. This would not happen until he's had his current implant for at least a year.

Q: When will the device be activated
A: Sometime around a month - 6 weeks after the surgery, we will go in for the initial mapping session

Q: What is mapping?
A: Mapping is the programming of the processor. It will adjust volume, and have different programs for different environments. It will need to be adjusted several times in the first few months so that David will get the most benefit from the device.

Q: Does it come off?
A: The external part of the implant is worn just like a hearing aid (David is getting the behind the ear processor) It comes off just like a hearing aid too. At night, so he can sleep, and for showering, swimming, and any water activities.

Q: Does it use batteries?
A: With the Freedom, David will have the option of using two different kinds of batteries. Rechargeable lithium ion batteries, and disposable batteries. The lithium ion batteries are a more cost effective method :)


I hope this answered most of people's questions. If you have any other questions, please leave a comment and I'll answer anything you'd like to know!

Getting to where we are.

David was just implanted with a Cochlear Nucleus Freedom implant on 4/21/08. It took years to get to this point. I'll start at the very beginning.

David was born a normal kid, just like any other kid. The 3rd child in a family of 4 children. He got very ill with spinal menengitis when he was 11 months old. He spent a month in the hospital recovering and came home right before his first birthday. Having this disease caused him to lose most of his hearing. By the time he was two years old, he was fitted bilaterally with hearing aids.

David went through life with his hearing aids, wearing an auditory trainer in school, and working in speech therapy and with a teacher of the deaf throughout his years in school.

Around 4 years ago, we (as a newly married couple) went to see a new audiologist about new hearing aids. She said that the newest technology at this point wouldn't be terribly beneficial to David and that there was one in between digital and amplification that would be the best option for him in hearing aids. She also mentioned that he should look into getting cochlear implants.

We started doing some research and thought that it looked really interesting and beneficial, but David wasn't ready to take that step yet (after all, it is a life altering surgery!)

We went back to his audiologist that he had been seeing his whole life. David mentioned the CI and she agreed, that he would be a good candidate. At that point, David still wanted to think about it more. He was fitted with his new hearing aids and off we went into the wonderful world of digital (semi anyway) hearing aids.

At first they were GREAT! Then, things started getting hard again and David started thinking more and more about the Implants. When we went to get him new ear molds, he brought it up. His audiologist gave him the name of an ENT in another state that did the implants.

We went and met with the Doctor, and started the testing process. This took a long 6 months. David is what they call a borderline candidate. He's just on the edge of being able to get implanted. The reason that he's on the edge is because he communicates well with his hearing aids even though it's terribly frustrating for him at times. The thing that pushed him over the edge into approval is his strong motivation and desire for change.

He recieved the implant on 4/21/08 at 8:30 in the morning. The surgery went perfectly. There was no resistance while everything was being put into the proper places and the device is in perfect working order. David spent the night in the hospital recovering. He was extremely sick upon waking up! He's home now and doing well.

Tomorrow the bandages come off. He can't wait for this, as they are really bothering him at this point. The stitches come out on Monday.

In a short month, David will get the external part of the device and be turned on for the first time. We're not expecting any miracles, and we know that there is a lot of hard work to come, but we're both incredibly excited to begin the next leg of the journey!